by Kimberly Devine

Created on: March 15, 2009

My first kiss was the kiss I measured every kiss against until I met the man I married.

I was sixteen, and the evening had started with a school dance. School dances were the perfect time to prove you were strong and alive, care free. The girls smiled at everyone and shook their bodies on the dance floor. The guys watched and joked.

I had girl friends grabbing my arm and skipping with me through the halls and boys stopping me, to talk of innocent things. Yet, to my teenage heart, their voices were laced with seduction. An arm placed over my shoulder was both a gesture of friendship and a sign of possession.

I had no boyfriend, so I was free to enjoy these tentative flirtations. Each conversation held the potential of the unknown. Each simple touch sent shivers up my arms and down into my stomach. After all, my friends were good kids, and I was safe with them.

I was glowing with my budding understanding of the feminine mystique when one of my friends walked in with a guest.

I had met Nick before; we had all hung out in groups, as teenagers often do. He was from the city and played football. Tall, dark and very handsome to my girlish eyes, his parents owned a vacation place nearby, and he came up a couple of times a month. That night, I had been hoping he would come.

All of our friends continued to flirt and joke, safely exercising their social skills, but Nick and I started to block everyone else away. Girls asked him to dance, popular girls, but he declined. I had somehow captured his attention, and I was stunned. Never before had anyone showed such singular interest in me.

That night, we followed our typical post-dance routine: Pizza Hut followed by hide-and-seek through a complicated wooden playground at the elementary school.

During the ride to Pizza Hut, I was teasing him about not dancing. Nick took my hand. As we climbed out of our friend's car, he slid his arm around my waist and turned me into his arms. Right in the parking lot, wrapped together, we started to sway together. He hummed in my ear, and my eyes teared with the romance of it.

Together in a booth, we tossed pepperoni slices at our friends. Under the table, my hand was tenderly clasped in Nick's and I felt his thumb rub across the underside of my wrist. I could feel myself blushing at the intimacy of the gesture, but I was lost in the moment and in our secret hand-holding.

In Pizza Hut, someone always asked if we were going to the playground. I don't know why we did this; it was one of our rituals.

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